Media release 11/11/09

Sustainable Shetland – Media Release.

Advertising watchdog find against wind farm advert

Sustainable Shetland, say they are pleased that the Advertising Standards
Authority have upheld four key complaints lodged by the group against
an advertising leaflet published by wind farm developer Viking Energy.

The initial complaint, dating from May, was made by the group
who are opposed to plans by Viking Energy to build Europe’s largest
wind farm in the Shetland Islands.

The adverts watchdog found that Viking Energy, in a leaflet
issued to every household in Shetland, had broken ASA rules regarding
environmental
claims, substantiation and truthfulness.

Speaking on behalf of the 650 member community campaign, vice
Chair Kevin Learmonth said:

“We are pleased with this ASA judgement, it shows that Viking
Energy cannot claim a specified sum as income to the community, cannot
claim
a specified profit until all costs are known and contracts in place,
and cannot claim a specific carbon payback figure as being definite”.

Mr Learmonth said that the ruling “puts a big question mark
over Viking Energy’s key financial and environmental claims”.

However, the community group remain very concerned that Viking
Energy used, and continue to use, Shetland community money to print
and
distribute information which the ASA have found to be untruthful,
unsubstantiated
and misleading. He added that
“What’s really worrying here is that Viking Energy is still making
the same claims despite the ASA telling them not to do so.”

This site...

This site...

Sustainable Shetland is a campaign group formed in March 2008 in response to a proposal for a large scale wind
farm in Shetland. We believe these large industrial projects are damaging
to our environment. We believe that the Viking Energy wind farm endangers
Shetland Community Funds, project costs are underestimated and
project income grossly over stated.

We believe that the Viking Energy proposals are everything we do not need
in Shetland: they are financially risky and potentially damaging to the Shetland environment.

We want to see sustainable renewable energy projects in Shetland which
are fit for scale and fit for purpose, and provide real community benefit.

We are not an "anti windfarm" campaign. However we are strongly opposed
to the Viking wind farm proposal. Other projects will be considered
on their own merits.

We are working on updating this web site to reflect new information in
Viking Energy's planning "addendum", so at the moment some information may refer to the initial wind farm
planning application and not the addendum. We appreciate your patience
as we work on updates to this site.